Churches: Moral Right & Economic Might

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The increasing commitment of U.S. churches to eradicating social evils has confronted them with a new dilemma:

Should they use their economic power — to the extent that they have it — to further these ethical goals?

The question is not academic. On construction alone, the churches spend $1 billion per year. Denominational pension funds — invested in stocks, bonds and mortgages — add up to more than $2 billion. The yearly purchasing power of the churches runs into still more billions; last year the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York alone spent $17 million on goods and services.

Against Apartheid. The unsolved problem for the churches is the precise way in which this economic power ought to be used as a moral lever in society. One kind of answer was recently suggested by the Protestant biweekly Christianity and Crisis. The magazine withdrew its deposit fund of slightly more than $10,000 from Manhattan's First National City Bank. The gesture of protest was taken because First National City is one of ten U.S. banks in a consortium that provides a $40 million revolving fund to the government of South Africa. In announcing the withdrawal, the editors conceded that it may not be the business of banks "to make foreign policy"; but so great is the evil of apartheid, they added, that some kind of token protest against the bank's acquiescence in South Africa's racial policies was necessary.

Christianity and Crisis' decision was part of a wider boycott of banks that is sponsored by a self-styled Committee of Conscience Against Apartheid.

Headed by Methodist A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and supported by such churchmen as Reinhold Niebuhr and Bishop James A. Pike, the committee claims to have pledges of deposit withdrawals totaling $22 million. Defenders of the committee argue that there is ample precedent for such a boycott: most Protestant churches refuse to invest in companies that manufacture alcohol or tobacco products. Boston's Episcopal Bishop Anson Phelps Stokes Jr. believes that the churches should no more support apartheid, even implicitly, than they should buy "real estate that was being used as a brothel."

To church officials involved in the day-to-day handling of ecclesiastical funds, the issue appears far more complex. Many strongly suspect that grandstand gestures of protest may in the end do more harm than good. Says Mrs. Porter Brown, general secretary of the Methodist Church's Board of Missions, which spends $16.6 million a year to support churches abroad, including some in South Africa: "If we take our money out of First National City, whom do we give it to? Barclays? Lloyd's? They are involved in South Africa just as much as First National City."

Losing Leverage. Another argument against blanket withdrawal of investments is raised by Wichita Lawyer William Thompson, the new Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church. He contends that by taking funds out of a bank or selling shares in a company whose policies they may not approve, the churches lose their leverage to change the minds of corporation officials.